By Benjamin Paulin The Enterprise

A day after his estranged wife was killed, Jean-Michel Beaulieu was stopped trying to flee into Canada and held in connection with a homicide in Brockton, a border patrol spokesman told The Enterprise.

Florence Beaulieu, 32, was found dead in her Brockton home on Forest Avenue on May 16. She was a mother of four, the Enterprise reported.

The following day Jean-Michel Beaulieu, 42, was stopped while trying to cross the border into Canada in Highgate, Vt., driving a gray BMW.

“He was coming through the port of entry and was stopped,” said Stephen Sapp, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. “We discovered that he was wanted for homicide in the city of Brockton.”

Sapp said the agency was already working with Massachusetts and Vermont state police at the time Beaulieu was trying to flee the country.

Massachusetts authorities and the Plymouth Country District Attorney’s Office have not said whether he is charged with murdering Florence Beaulieu, and did not confirm he had been found until releasing a press statement Wednesday, nearly two weeks after the incident.

The family of the victim told The Enterprise during a Monday, May 26, vigil that her estranged husband had been detained.

Beaulieu was charged with being a fugitive from justice on three counts of violating a restraining order in Massachusetts, court documents show.

He waived his right to extradition May 19 and has been in the Northwest State Correctional Facility, in Swanton, VT, since his arrest, according to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.

Neither Brockton police nor the district attorney’s office would say whether they have visited with him.

Beaulieu’s body was found only two days after she withdrew a restraining order, obtained April 30, against her estranged husband at Brockton District Court.

Florence Beaulieu had filed for divorce from him on April 18. Her family said he was abusive to her throughout their 15-year marriage.

Mitch Librett, professor of criminal justice at Bridgewater State University and former police officer, said charging Beaulieu with violating a restraining order was all that was needed to keep him from fleeing the country.

“It’s enough to hold him and certainly enough to keep him in custody,” Librett said.

Beaulieu has been available to be picked up in Vermont by Massachusetts authorities since May 19. It is unclear why he has not yet been brought back to Massachusetts 10 days after he waived his right to extradition.

Librett said a reason to stall in picking up an out-of-state prisoner may be “keeping a guy on edge or rattling him.”

On Friday, Emmanuel Saint-Louis, Florence’s father, said his family had not seen or spoken to Jean-Michel since her death.

After her body was discovered, police put out an order to be on the lookout for a gray BMW belonging to Jean-Michel.

The Plymouth County District Attorney’s office said in a press release that Beaulieu is expected to be arraigned “at a later date.”